Christmas Cakes

LTD absolutely adore story time. Two of their recent favorites include: The birth of Baby Jesus and Twas the Night Before Christmas. Baby Jesus and Santa consume their thoughts, playtime activities and words. In fact, they just HAD to make two Christmas cakes; one for Baby Jesus and one for Santa.

Dylan wanted to decorate Santa's cake himself so the girls shared in decorating the cake for Baby Jesus. They were really intense in making sure each cake was decorated perfectly with snow white cream cheese frosting, lots of colorful ornaments and sparkles and then topped them off with a shining star. They did a fantastic job!

One cake lasted approximately 2.5 minutes before they wanted to dig in and taste the fruit of their labor. Dylan insisted we save his cake for Santa since he will be really hungry when he gets here on Christmas Eve to drop off their presents; so it's in the freezer officially taking up space.

We have a Nativity scene we put up that is like a magnet that little hands just can't keep off. Thankfully it is very durable since Baby Jesus has been dropped several times. It's a riot to hear them "play" the story of His birth with all the figurines in the scene. Taylor is especially transfixed and you can hear her saying, "Oh, baby, that's ok. Let's wrap you up and get you toasty warm. Oh look, visitors!" I MUST get all this on video since it just warms the heart and soul to the core.

Tree of Thankfulness

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and with that comes reflection of everything our family has to be thankful for. In the corner of our formal dining room sets one fake evergreen shrub with sparkling lights. LTD have always called it "the BABY Christmas tree", although it's up yearlong. This year we received a great idea from our SIL, Heidi, and decided to start a new family tradition and have officially changed the shrub's name to the "Tree of Thankfulness". The kiddos decorate the tree with paper ornaments they make by hand that list what they are thankful for that particular day. Not only does it make each one of us talk about what we are most grateful for, but it allows them to visibly see ALL that we are fortunate to have been blessed with. They are so proud to disply their ornaments but we have also found other things hanging from the poor shrub such as cars, dolls and necklaces. We have lost a few ornaments due to scissors experiments (thank you, Dylan), but for the most part they are holding their own.

Things they are most grateful for include:

Mommy & Daddy

Papas & Grandmas

God

Baby Jesus

The sun

Snow

Friends (Aimee, Ella, Kendrick, Anna, Ben, Maddie & Melise)

Cousins (Anna, Faith & Baby Jordan)

Aunt Heidi and Uncle Ken

Trucks/Cars

Dolls/Dollhouse

In addition, each night before bedtime when we pray, LTD always get a chance to pray for somebody or something specific. It's so precious hearing who and what they want to pray for. Each night it's a whole new experience and brings alot of smiles to our faces. Our goal is to instill in our children the importance of being thankful and to pray for people they love and others who are in need or less fortunate.

Memory Lane

In the last week I have been exceptionally emotional and disheartened. Perhaps it has something to do with witnessing our country leaning deeper and deeper into the grips of liberalism and socialism (Obama elected President - YIKES!!!!). Our conservative and Christian values seem to be less important in today's society and we can only trust and have faith in our loving Lord & Savior and His master plan. Let's continue to pray for our country, our leaders and the future of our children so that they too may know the benefits of living in the greatest country on God's green earth.

With emotions running high, I searched out the past and managed to resurrect our family's very first web site on CaringBridge. This was the web site we used to keep family and friends updated on our journey through a triplet pregnancy as well as the aftermath. How sad that when LTD were about 6 mos old, life got REALLY busy and I quit posting journal entries and it all got slowly left in the dust. SO, I thought to myself this week , I said "Tina, why not find the old web site and put a link on this blog so we can reflect back on the early days and let our children have something to look back on as well?" So that's just what I did. I realized we had 4,226 visitors to that site by the time the kiddos turned 6 mos. old!!!! WOW!!! It's simply amazing how positive news (the birth of healthy babies) is equally as "popular" as negative news which we are so accustomed to hearing in our world. Check out our CaringBridge link in the right hand column of our blog (immediately under our Kodak link) to look back on a few pictures (their old web site template only let you post 3 pictures at a time), journal entries, and guestbook entries. What an incredible experience!!!! God has been SO amazingly wonderful to us and I feel it is our duty to spread His word, especially in times of uncertainty. Let us all stand up for what we believe in so that we don't fall for "anything", never waiver, and bring others on the journey with us. May God bless you and this great country.

Happy Halloween!!

Halloween is great for checking out all the adorable children's costumes but it's a real doozy when you have little ones with LOTS of candy treasure. What's a parent to do? How do you secretly get rid of the "stash", the fruit of their labor of going door-to-door and begging for sugar, without breaking their little hearts? What about those of us who have an addiction to Tootsie Rolls and have an entire bag leftover from that night? Bah humbug!!

Sugar aside, Halloween week was a blast!!! LTD got a chance to dress up on several occasions: the Mother's of Mutliples party, their KPT class and on Halloween night. Dylan was sold on the duck outfit the first time I pulled it out for them to see (I bought 3 for a great price from a friend with triplets hoping LTD would like them - no questions asked). NOPE! Lindsey and Taylor had their hearts set on being princesses and that was that. I did talk them into wearing the duck outfits to KPT since they needed an outfit that was "easy on and off" for the teachers' sake. Princess outfits seem to include about 20 pieces of fluff per outfit and I couldn't do that to Ms. Lisa and Ms. Kim. I played and sang the "5 Little Ducks" song over and over for a few days prior to get them fired up about it, but Lindsey was NOT happy about it (although she caved in for one day). Not sure how they cope with all their stress, poor things!

Make sure to check out the KodakGallery link (right hand column) for all our Halloween photos and October fun. Also, click on the "music we love" to hear Steven Curtis Chapman's song "Cinderella", which seemed appropriate for our little princesses. Steven is a Christian music artist. If you don't know Steven's story about his daughter who he lost at an early age due to an unfortunate accident, check it out on google or YouTube. Very sad and it makes Dave and I want to hug our children tightly and never let them go.

Most recent quotes at Camp Clark:

Taylor: "Daddy, do you got a baby in your belly?" (no, that's just good beer)

Dave: "I like that meat on this pizza. What is it, sheep?" (confusing that with 'lamb' as in gyros - actually it was steak sliced thin )

Stay tuned for more :)